Building Physical and Virtual Bridges With Karlie Kloss
Karlie Kloss has used modeling to catapult herself into a world of social entrepreneurship and a place where she can build bridges between physical fashion and the digital world.
She uses curiosity as her guide, and is inspired by her childhood growing up in the Midwest with three sisters and the conviction that girls could do anything that boys could, and then some.
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“I have always liked to learn from everyone around me, and my career as a model has enabled me to be around some of the most innovative thinkers in fashion, tech, business and media. And I think all of us, as companies, entrepreneurs and individuals, have to continue to innovate with the changing world that we’re living in,” Kloss said at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit in conversation with Lisa Lockwood, WWD’s news director.
Kloss, the founder of Kode With Klossy, a nonprofit that hosts free summer coding camps for teenage girls, said her career started on the runway “as a model who was seen and not heard.” But social media changed the game and “gave me a voice to show who I am and what I stand for, and to be entrepreneurial.”
Kloss said that over the past eight years Kode With Klossy has educated some 12,000 young women and gender nonconforming individuals, giving them the tools to operate in the digital world.
“I’m really proud of the work we’ve been able to do, and it all started out with my own curiosity of wanting to learn more. At the time [I founded Kode With Klossy], I was still very much in editorials, on runways and traveling, but along the way I wanted to keep learning. And I had the support from my parents and that belief in myself as well,” said Kloss, adding that it was not easy starting the coding program.
“I faced a lot of criticism. People had all sorts of opinions about a fashion model who was interested in code. When I learned how to code myself I realized it was something everyone needs to have some exposure to, because we are all consumers of technology.”
She added that knowing how to code is a superpower. It can inspire people to start businesses; “help them to take an idea and drill it into a product, or create a solution that is applicable to all of our lives. I think we’re only scratching the surface of what is possible, and we need to have women be a part of that conversation.”
Kode With Klossy is only one part of Kloss’ mission to exploit and explore the possibilities of Web 3.0, a dimension that fascinates her.
She wants the metaverse to be a democratic, accessible space, especially when it comes to fashion. To that end she’s worked with companies including Roblox, Adidas and Carolina Herrera on fusing the worlds of fashion and tech and opening those industries to new audiences.
She said that, as a young girl growing up in Missouri, she felt no connection to luxury fashion and had no access to it either.
A platform such as Roblox, she said, can create “access points for the best of fashion. It is very exciting from a values perspective. It democratizes access to self-expression in fashion and beauty.”
On Roblox, Kloss added, “you can dress your avatar, and choose to be whoever you want to be, you can represent yourself authentically in a way that is uninhibited. And I think there’s so much business opportunity in this space as well.”
Over the summer, Kloss worked on a Roblox pop-up game that saw 5 million people participate over two weeks.
They created the Fashion Klossette Designer Showcase, a centralized hub that teleported visitors to five pop-up shops featuring community-created digital fashion collections.
Kloss and Roblox worked with community designers on the platform to help expand and elevate their individual work, and to highlight digital fashion and self-expression to the broader fashion community.
Earlier this year, Kloss also partnered with Adidas on a project that saw QR codes embedded into products. Once scanned, the codes gave customers insight into the inspiration behind the designs.
Kloss and Adidas built a website that gave a behind-the-scenes look at the ad campaign and the process of bringing the collection of 17 apparel items, three footwear offerings and two accessories to life.
She saw the Adidas and Roblox projects as the start of a whole new adventure in Web 3.0.
“I think digital fashion right now is still this abstract concept,” Kloss said. “We live in a physical industry. And it’s a lot about the in-person experience. But for me, it’s not one or the other, it’s about this evolution of embracing where and how the two will connect. And I think we have yet to see the applications of that.
“I think gaming is the first application of this digital expression of our identities, and the evolution will keep happening. I’m certainly a futurist and I definitely think it’s inevitable. And I think it’s very exciting because of the democratized nature of the digital ecosystem,” she said.
Kloss also revealed that she and her team are working on “building a full world that really is going to be this bridge between the industry that I’ve spent half of my life working in. I want to be this bridge between the digital and physical in the fashion industry. This is my opportunity. Anybody want to work with us?” she asked the audience.
“Please, let me know, and please stay in touch,” she said.
Kloss has been investing in other companies as well, including one that embeds digital IDs into garments. The IDs contain details of the products and verifies their authenticity. “There is so much that you can do with data. I find the back-end management of that data so interesting,” she said.
Another start-up Kloss has invested in creates a digital avatar of a customer’s body. The aim is to help the customer find products best suited to them. She believes that will lead to a “more efficient relationship between supply and demand. It will be really interesting to solve that problem. We all know so well about returns, about waste and creating so much inventory.”
Kloss believes there is much untapped potential in using technology “to solve big problems in a more innovative way. And that’s part of why I care so much about investing in educating the next generation of women who will be in the fashion industry. They will be able to understand these opportunities and the problems that exist and how to solve for them.”
As she looks to empower women and build bridges between fashion and the digital world, Kloss is also concerned about more immediate issues.
Asked by Lockwood about Adidas’ decision to terminate its relationship with Kanye “Ye” West following a string of threatening, racist comments, Kloss did not hesitate with her response. “I am very glad that Adidas did the right thing, and hate speech should never be tolerated,” she said.